Bottles, particularly for soft drinks and other beverages, are often stored and transported in trays. The term “tray” as used herein includes trays, crates, cases, and similar containers having a floor and a peripheral side wall structure. As compared with other materials, plastic trays provide advantages such as strength, durability, and reusability. In order to minimize the storage space of trays as well as to reduce their cost and weight, many trays are constructed to have shallow side and end walls. Such trays are generally referred to as “low depth” trays in which the side and end walls are lower than the height of the stored bottles.
In general, bottles go through a bottling facility and to the bottler's warehouse in the following order: the bottles are filled, sealed, loaded into trays, and then the trays are palletized. A pallet may include multiple layers of trays of a single product, such as soft drinks of the same flavor. Trays in successive layers are stacked or cross-stacked on top of each other, with the bottles bearing most of the load of above-stacked trays. These bulk pallets are stored in a warehouse for shipping to retailers.
In the soft drink industry, there are two methods by which products are shipped to retailers: bulk delivery and route delivery. Bulk delivery is by the pallet, and is typically used for large retailers. Since each pallet contains only trays of a single flavor, retailers must order multiple pallets to ensure that they stock a mixture of products appropriate to meet demand, and must have sufficient space to accommodate all of these pallets. Due the space and sales volume requirements of bulk delivery, the majority of shipments of soft drinks to smaller retailers is done by the route delivery method. These retailers are generally low volume sellers and have less space for storing and merchandising product. Since route delivery retailers cannot accept entire pallets of one product, they receive a mixture of product in a smaller shipment. For the bottlers or distributors, this means that route delivery orders must be processed by breaking down bulk pallets of product and forming delivery pallets which contain a sorted mixture of products.
One recent advance in the shipping and distribution areas is the use of an automated product handling device marketed as the Tygard Claw® by Tygard Machine and Manufacturing Company of Pittsburgh, Pa. The Tygard Claw can be installed to the front or side of a conventional forklift carriage, and enables a distributor to pick from a bulk pallet of product one layer at a time. Briefly, the Tygard Claw is a large clamping device with four individual walls that approach a layer of product on a pallet squarely and uniformly by each wall moving toward and away from a pallet layer in a translating motion. The actuators for the walls are equipped so that the walls are touch sensitive in order to lift the product without damage. The use of clamping devices such as the Tygard Claw enables distributors to assemble route delivery pallets from bulk pallets one layer of product at a time without the need for manual picking.
With the aforementioned storage, handling, and delivery processes in mind, there are several features which are desirable for the design of low depth bottle trays. Generally, low depth trays should have a wall structure that provides support for the bottles stored therein while also allowing the bottles to be visible for merchandising purposes. In addition, trays should be designed with structural features which enhance their stability when stacked and cross-stacked. Still further, the wall structure should have sufficient strength and rigidity to withstand automated handling. Lastly, the trays should be lightweight and be easy to manipulate and carry.
While some trays may fulfill these objectives, two important problems are encountered with current low depth trays. First, the side wall construction of low depth trays often does not allow great enough tolerance for nesting of trays, such that trays can become misaligned and/or stuck together. As a result, conservation of storage space and ease of handling is sacrificed. Second, the side wall structure is often not suited for the automated handling devices and processes described above.